Can't Get You Off My mind
by Neathra
Summary: After surviving the blast from Gladstone's Staff, Nathaniel and Bartimaeus recover from their wounds in the hospital. Restrained Hijink's ensue.


**Written for a Bartimaeus fic exchange last year. Here, Bartimaeus and Nathaniel survive the end of the book, and end up in the hospital. Because that is were they would end up if they survived that explosion. **

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The thing we both found out about a dismissal from inside your own head is that I got a say in whether or not I'd go. Staying was crazy, almost certainly fatal: so of course I ended up choosing that. Call it what you will (1) but I wasn't going to leave the boy now.

The staff broke. The blast saved us from Nouda's attack, but hurled us to the edge of the glass palace. Shakily getting to our feet, I rapidly assessed the situation. The center of the Glass Palace had become a blazing firestorm that had incinerated Nouda pretty much instantaneously. Being thrown had let us avoid the worst of the aftermath, but the temperature was already unbearably hot where we were standing, and it just kept rising. We needed a way out now.

Not that Nathaniel was being much help. The blazing heat had sent him straight back to the Underwood house fire. I ignored his blabbering, and soon we were outside collapsing onto the ground. No longer sustained by adrenaline, Nathaniel fainted pulling me into unconscious with him.

I woke up first. We were lying on our backs on cold metal, under a bright spotlight. Down by our side, a man in medical scrubs was doing something. I couldn't feel anything, and motion felt thick and slow like trying to move under syrup. I reached out for Nathaniel to see how he was handling this scene, and found nothing. Nathaniel was just gone. I couldn't even feel an echo of his mind.

Maintaining my composure as best I could, I attempted to sit up, but everything was so thick and heavy. Our heart began racing, and somewhere an alarm went off. Immediately, everyone jumped to different positions; our shoulders where firmly pushed down, there was shouting, and someone came running over holding a strange device. It felt like I couldn't breathe, and then everything went black.

When I finally came to a second time, we were no longer under a spotlight, but lying on a bed in a sterile white hospital room(2), livened up by only a single bright multicolored bouquet on a side table. Our side was tightly wrapped with some sort of bandage, but at least I could at least feel Nathaniel's mind. I found him, groggy, and slowly waking, but that void was gone.

"I'm glad to see you're up Mr. Mandrake. I'm your nurse Johanna. You gave us all quite a scare." A woman commented walking into my field of view. As she followed through on her checklist, she asked mind numbingly obvious questions, such as what color wall was(3), and where we were(4). It took a little prodding, but Nathaniel managed to answer correctly.

Seemingly satisfied with his answers, the nurse stepped back. "The doctor is going to be in shortly, but is there anything you need now?"

"No, but thank you." I quickly answered, cutting Nathaniel off. The nurse smiled and left. A more awake Nathaniel fumed.

_I'm hungry – I didn't eat since breakfast the day of that stupid play. I was going to ask her when the hospital servers dinner for patients. _

_You'll live. It's not like they're going to let John Mandrake starve._

His scathing response was cut off by our doctor's arrival. After checking over the chart stuck to the foot of our bed, he looked us straight in the eyes asking

"Right. So, first things first. Ms. Jones appraised me of your situation, and so who am I talking to, John Mandrake or Bartimaeus. Are both of you still in there?"

"Why wouldn't we be?"

The doctor flipped through our file, "While we were operating on your side injury, you came too during surgery, tried to sit up, and then suffered a heart attack. You were physically dead for two minutes before we managed to revive you. After Ms. Jones warned us about the body sharing, it became a concern that one of you may not have made it."

"Ahh."

"Well, we're both here." Nathaniel assured his- our doctor. "How long have we been unconscious? I assume that we weren't brought in last night?"

"You've been unconscious now for a little over twenty-four hours. You were admitted at 3AM yesterday morning."

"And my side?"

"Your side suffered from third degree burns. We had to operate to remove the dead skin, and apply skin grafts. We're looking at maybe three to four weeks until you are able to leave."

Nathaniel's progress did not match what the hospital had hoped. His injuries lingered on longer than the month our doctor had promised. With their most prominent patient languishing in a strange purgatory, the hospital made a drastic reassessment and placed Nathaniel under the experienced care of the Ward's head nurse. Nurse Ross ruled with a fist of iron, and quickly banned spirits or anything else that might increase her patient's blood pressure.(5)

"Would you stop insulting my nurse?" Nathaniel grumbled, trying to decide whether his dinner was worth eating(6). "I've been making real progress since she stepped in."

"You saw what she did to Wargoyle…"

"After his little adventure in Labor and Delivery? I'm shocked the hospital hasn't permanently banned him from the premises."

Our visitor snorted "Rebecca's lucky your nurse didn't go after her with that broom. Wargoyle is her imp after all."

Kitty had given up her chair in favor of directly sitting on the bed. She had made excellent progress over that last month, and had almost regained everything lost in her trip to the Other Place. She'd decided against dyeing her hair, instead letting it grow out silver. "But, seriously I've heard threats of a write-in campaign if you don't run."

Nathaniel transferred his glower from the tofu to his visitor, "I already told them I'm through with politics. Research seems a lot healthier."

"Ahh, but that makes you perfect for the job." I sighed shaking our head, "Don't you think it's important that we give the people what they want. And they want their hero in office."

"Then Kitty should run! She's as much of a hero as I am." To accentuate his point, Nathaniel tried to point his fork at Kitty. At the same moment, I tried to take a bite of the food.

Kitty picked bits of tofu out of her hair. "Leave me out of this. I'm not going to get involved in that mess." The she paused, "It's unfortunate that John Mandrake is so easy to spell. If it was harder to spell the write-in might not work."

I felt this was a perfect time to chime in, "You should have chosen a name like Bartimause. I remember a few magicians who spelled that wrong. They were delicious."

"Ms. Piper has the necessary qualifications -" he began, before getting cut off,

"Rebecca, would just love to be your assistant again, but doesn't have the personality for elected office."

After much fuming into his food, Nathaniel conceded, "I'll think about it. Happy?" There was an awkward pause. Then, "Anyways, they think I'm ready to be released tomorrow. You'll be able to help right?"

Kitty checked outside the window, "Considering that at least three newspapers have made the front doors their semi-permanent residence? I say you'll be needing a distraction more. Any progress on sending Bartimaeus home yet by the way?"

"Our last batch of candle was confiscated."(7)

Nathaniel exploded "It's not. She took them because they're a fire hazard! Which I would have told you if you'd stopped cutting me off."

Kitty opened her mouth to say something, but Nathaniel's outburst had attracted Nurse Ross's attention. Like the bat she was, she swooped in rushing Kitty out with a hissed "Visiting Hours are over." Then she shut the lights off adding, "And, I suggest you two get some sleep. Check out is always draining."

The next morning was consumed by paperwork, dodging the press, and other issues(8). But, soon enough we found ourselves standing alone in Nathaniel's entryway.

_Your maid is very dedicated. Not a speck of dust. It's like you didn't just spend a month in the hospital. _

"If you'd been left in charge, you would have left everything to the last minute and I'd have come home to you desperately cleaning."

_I am not that bad. _

He didn't verbally respond, but disagreement was written all over his mind. _You know that I can read your mind right? _ He just snorted and headed into his study.

"Exactly why I want you out of my head. You always have some remark on what I'm thinking. It's very distracting." He explained as he began the dismissal

_You'd better summon me back before your follow-up tomorrow. We both know that you and Kitty won't last ten minutes without me._

My commentary made him pause, "Are you sure that you'll be rested enough if I bring you back?"

_I'll be find. Sitting in your head is almost as good as being in the Other Place. _When he didn't resume chanting I added, _Do you want me to go or not? Last chance. _He shook his head, and finished the dismissal.

_You'll make a great Prime Minister!_ I called as the dismissal took hold. As I left, he was still spluttering.

**Nurse Ross's Ban List (according to Bartimause)**

Wargoyle

Magic (In General)

Talk of Rebuilding the Government

Magic (In Particular: Summoning)

Talk of Rebuilding London

Magic (In Particular: Dismissals)

Floral Arrangements

Salt, Spices, and mostly anything except Boiled Tofu and Steamed Vegetables

The Entire Information Ministry (Excluding Acting Prime Minister Rebecca Piper)

Newspapers

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1 Abject stupidity comes to mind.

2 Or, at least I assumed it was a hospital. I had it under good authority that the unnervingly clean, antiseptic smell was unique to hospitals, but I suppose we could have been in some secret government lab.

3 A rather boring shade of white

4 Still in London. Sadly.

5 She had taken to stalking the hallways, wielding both a broom and her appearance as a frightful old bat with a hooked nose and –

6 A side effect of my inhabiting his body was Nathaniel's new intolerance for herbs such as rosemary that magicians traditionally use to ward off us spirits. Nathaniel discovered this after a particularly testy argument between the two of us, and he decided to punish me by ordering Sage Chicken for dinner. To my great amusement, he took one bite and then proceeded to spend the next half hour violently throwing up. The hospital's brilliant response was limit his food choices to boiled tofu and steamed vegetables.

7 Magic was right under Wargoyle on the list of things banned from the ward.

8 There was this one psychologist who we could never quite convinced that my presence wasn't just Nathaniel's reaction to an overabundance of stress and life threatening trauma.

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**So, I hope people enjoyed that. I've slowly been moving to AO3 (What? I like tags.), and just realized that I should post the new stuff over here. I'm writing under Neathra there too, and have been slowly rewriting my really old stuff. I'll be posting updates for the stories I've rewritten. But everything is immediately available over on my AO3!**


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